Brand New Day
by wright.or.wrong
Summary: How Finn spent his summer vacation
1. Chapter 1

Title: Brand New Day (or How Finn Spent His Summer Vacation)

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Glee characters.

Rating: M to be safe – some sexual material and a few expletives here and there

Spoilers: Up through the end of the first season. The story was also mildly influenced by season 2 promos so if you're hardcore spoiler-free, then you might want to skip this.

Summary: Ten weeks of summer

A/N: This is my first Glee story – and I've got to be honest, I never thought in a million years that I'd be writing one. But I am totally in love with Finn and I probably identify with Rachel a little more than is healthy. This came to me when I started seeing promos for the new season and just wouldn't go away. Any and all feedback welcome. It's not really easy writing from the POV of a sixteen year old boy, I've found. LOL

The story is completely done but I am breaking it up into two parts because it is kind of long. The second part will be posted sometime tomorrow.

- X –

The first week, they barely talk.

For once, though, it's not because they're avoiding each other or being stupid and stubborn like they have so many times before.

Because, really, they spend pretty much every free minute together – from nine or so every morning when she promptly knocks on his door or rings his cell phone like his very own personal wake-up call (he'd normally kick anyone's ass for waking him up that early during summer vacation, but it's Rachel and he's dying to see her as much as she's dying to see him) to eleven every night when her dads expect her home – but quietly, without a whole lot of talking.

It's almost like they've just survived some kind of natural disaster, like a tornado or an earthquake, and they need time to process it all. He knows that losing at Regionals is nowhere near as bad as having your house blown to bits or crumble to the ground, but sometimes it feels like it is. Sometimes it feels like something they won't ever really bounce back from.

Being with Rachel helps, though. She reminds him of what's possible. Her voice, her talent – he knows that nothing can keep her down for long.

They go to the park, to the lake, or sometimes just sit beside her pool. They lie together in the sun for hours, not saying a word. He likes it, not having to think of the right thing to say, not having to think at all really, just being with her and feeling the world spinning around them. School's just ended so his brain can use the downtime anyway, and maybe Rachel's can too because she thinks more than any person he's ever known in his life.

As they lie together, there is always some part of his body touching some part of hers, like they both need the contact to know that the other's near, that all of this isn't some crazy dream. She's got a thing for playing with his hair and he kind of loves it too, even though he always winds up making these embarrassing sounds like a cat purring or something. Plus he's got to make sure that there are at least a couple of inches between their hips or she'll realize he's about ten seconds away from creaming his shorts. He can't stop trailing his fingers up and down her back, where he can feel all the bumps and curves of her spine and the way she shivers when he reaches her bare skin.

The bathing suit she wears is black with white polka dots and has a kind of retro feel, like something one of those super curvy chicks in the old movies his mom likes to watch might wear. And even though it's one piece, it drives him kind of crazy. He likes to trace the curved edge right above her breasts because it always make her arch her back just a little so her throat is kind of exposed and he can kiss her right there on the side where he can feel pulse beat against his lips.

A couple of mornings, they go running together. Even though it seems like a long ways off, football season is just around the corner and he needs to be in shape for that. She says she prefers using her elliptical machine because she can get a full body work out but she's willing to keep him company. They both bring their iPods, though, so there's still no talking and they make up playlists for one another. Without even peeking at what the other is doing, they both choose Journey songs and they smile at one another in the middle of the track when they realize what they've done. They share a bottle of water on the bleachers afterward and watch Mr. Rafinello the janitor cut the grass next to the football field.

They still don't say a word.

He takes her to get her hair cut – she wants a change, she tells him. To signify a fresh start, a new beginning. – and waits in the front of the salon, flipping through an issue of Cosmo even though he doesn't understand half of the stuff in it. It does make him realize that girls must think about sex at least half as much as guys do and he wonders if Rachel's been thinking about it lately and if he should ask her about it and whether she knows that he's been dreaming about what her skin looks like under her clothes since practically they first day she spoke to him.

When she's finally done, she's got this heavy fringe of bangs over her forehead that draw all the attention to her big, dark eyes and he's stuck for a minute, just starting right into them.

She doesn't ask him if he likes the cut but he's pretty sure she gets the message from the way he kisses her right there in the middle of the salon and again as he opens her car door and when they park in front of her house and later on her front porch when she's supposed to have been inside twenty minutes earlier and he can't seem to stop.

They don't need words at all that first week.

- x -

The second week, she finally asks.

They are at the food court at the mall because he needed a new pair of sneakers and she wanted to pick up a biography of some Broadway singer he's never heard of at the book store. He's trying to quickly and discretely wolf down his Philly cheese steak because he's pretty sure the sight and smell of it disgust her, and she's sipping at some weird purplish-brown smoothie that she's stirred a little plastic bag of bee pollen into - because she swears that bee pollen can help increase your energy and help you handle stress more easily and apparently some doctors even say it helps athletic performance so maybe he might want to consider trying it –which makes him feel kind of sick, like his throat might close up just watching her.

"Did you mean it?" she asks suddenly.

He's so startled he nearly drops his sandwich. The last conversation he remembers having was about how much he's tried to get into _The Sun Also Rises_ because it's the first book on the summer reading list for Juniors English but he keeps getting all the characters confused. Rachel told him that she thinks he'll like it eventually because there's all this stuff about bullfighting and other exciting, dangerous stuff that guys like, but he's not sure he buys it.

"Mean what?" he asks, wiping at his mouth with a crumpled napkin.

She sighs a little bit, but it sounds more dreamy than sad. Her eyes seem enormous, dark and wet like melted chocolate. He wants to kiss her again, bee pollen or no bee pollen.

"What you said before we went on at Regionals," she says. "That you love me."

He furrows his brow, totally confused. It kind of boggles his mind that she'd have to ask that and that she'd wait so long to do it. After the past week together, it seems like she should know how he feels about her – because he wants to be with her all the time and he can't keep his hands off of her and he can't stop staring at her even when she totally busts him and gives him that smug, little grin.

She has to get it.

There is that annoying little voice in his head, though – the one that sounds kind of like Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio - that tells him he probably hurt her so bad, so many times, that now she can't believe anything he says. It makes him feel like the world's biggest douche, like he deserves the coldest, messiest slushie facial possible.

"Yeah," he tells her, as forcefully as he knows how. "Of course. I wouldn't have said it if it I didn't mean it, Rach."

Her eyes scan his face for a moment, like she's trying to determine how much she can trust him. But then she nods and sighs again, all happy and relieved, and he feels a little bit less like an asshole.

"The feeling is mutual, you know," she tells him. "It has been since almost the first time we sang together."

He can feel his smile stretching his cheeks and he knows he probably looks like the most whipped, pathetic loser on the planet but he doesn't care.

"I was kind of hoping."

She reaches across the table for his hand and it doesn't matter that the air reeks of onions and peppers and cheese whiz. This is one of those perfect moments that you look back at later and remember every little detail, like their fingers tangling together and Rachel's bangs falling in her eyes and some R.E.M. song he can never remember the name of playing on the mall's speakers. When they kiss, she tastes like raspberries and strawberries and something even tangier.

On the way home, Rachel points out fireworks in the sky. Tomorrow is the fourth of July and Farout Park is doing them a day early because a storm's supposed to be coming through. The park's too crowded, so they find a good spot a few blocks away and park the car. They sit on the hood together and watch the colors explode in the sky. She tucks herself under his arm, practically wrapping herself around him, and he presses his lips to the top of her head.

"I love you," he tells her again, and when she tilts her head back for a kiss, he knows that she believes him.

- x -

The third week, they get drunk.

Well, maybe not drunk but buzzed. Definitely buzzed.

They swipe a couple of bottles of champagne from her dads' wine refrigerator - "They won't miss it," she says. "Trust me." – when they're staying overnight in Dayton for a wedding. Rachel suggests they take it to the backyard, so they sit in lounge chairs beside the pool and takes turns sipping straight from the bottle. Finn's had beer a couple of times before and Rachel says her dads let her have a small glass of champagne on birthdays, holidays and other special occasions, but they still get buzzed pretty quickly.

He's got his iPod with him, so they share the headphones and take turns picking out songs, singing along when they feel like it. The more champagne they drink, the louder they get and they wind up tangled together on one chair, laughing so hard that it's hard to catch their breath. He plays 'Here Comes My Girl' by Tom Petty for her and she bobs her head along with the beat, her body vibrating against his like she's dancing without standing up. When it's her turn, she gets frustrated because she can't find a song on his iPod that fits her mood exactly. She pouts for a minute, somehow looking totally cute and totally hot at the same time. He takes a long sip of champagne, trying hard not to laugh.

But then she starts singing and nothing's funny anymore.

She isn't using her big star voice. She's singing softly, quietly, in a voice that's just for him. He doesn't recognize the song, but it's something about love and an easy chair and somehow he knows exactly what she's singing about.

He looks up at the sky, and there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of stars winking back at him. It makes him a little dizzy – or maybe that's the booze – and he holds her a little tighter.

"When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut," he says entirely out of the blue. The champagne has made his brain all fuzzy and he's not thinking in straight lines. "I begged my mom all the time to send me to space camp. But she never… I guess we didn't have the money."

Rachel lifts her head from his chest. Her eyes are kind of squinty, like she might fall asleep at any moment, but she's smiling and running her fingers through the sides of his hair. The strap of her sundress falls off her shoulder and all he wants to do is kiss the freckles there, one by one.

"What do you want to be now?" she asks.

He pauses for a minute, considering the question. What does he want to be? It's not that tough a question, he knows. But he's thinking hard, as hard as he can, and nothing is coming to mind. He tells himself that it's the champagne, but that seems like a cop out.

"I don't…"

He shakes his head in frustration.

"It's okay," Rachel says soothingly. "There's still so much time to figure it out."

"But you know. You've known since birth, right?"

She tilts her head, and it's like her eyes mist over or something. She looks sad and drunk, but still so pretty.

"Sometimes that isn't any easier than not knowing," she whispers. "Sometimes it's actually worse."

The pain in her voice almost makes his stomach hurt, and he reaches up to stroke her hair. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, she's smiling again, though it seems like maybe she's forcing it, trying just a little bit too hard.

"It doesn't matter anyway," she tells him. "Because I *know* you're going to be something great. Whatever it may be."

She sounds convincing, so he almost believes it when she says it. She is almost always right, after all, whether he wants to admit it or not. She could maybe be right about him too.

"And you're going to be a star," he says. "You already are."

She smiles, but there are tears in her eyes again, fighting their way down her cheeks. He knows it's probably the champagne because in health class, Mrs. Albert said alcohol was a depressant and just ten minutes earlier, Rachel was laughing like she'd never stop. And then he's horrified to realize that he's crying too, boo-hooing like some little bitch (he doesn't even want to know what the guys on the football team would say if they could see him now – slushies to the face for the rest of the year, he thinks.) and he doesn't know how to stop because he doesn't know how or why it started. Rachel stretches up to kiss him then, and she tastes sharp and salty, like champagne and tears. In their drunken haze, it feels like they could kiss for hours, like it's their job or something and there's nothing else in the world for them to do.

That must be what happens because the next time he's really conscious, it's dawn and the sky above is a weird, pearly gray color. They've fallen asleep in the lounge chair with the champagne bottles scattered around them and their legs all tangled together. He wakes her so they can dispose of the evidence and straighten up the patio. He helps her up to a room afterward, so she can catch a few hours of real sleep.

On her pale pink bedspread, he lingers, kissing her some more. His head is kind of throbbing and he's pretty much starving and he knows he has to hurry and sneak back home before his mom realizes he's been gone all night but he can't seem to tear himself away from her.

He knows he can't blame that on the champagne.

- x -

The fourth week, he hears his mother whispering to Burt about them in the kitchen after Rachel's come for dinner.

His mom lets him off the hook from washing the dishes, his usual post-dinner job, so he can watch a movie with Rachel and Kurt, but he feels a little bit bad about it, like he's sticking her especially since he hasn't exactly been around to do many chores lately. He tells Kurt and Rachel to start without him and heads back to the kitchen, figuring if helps his mom, they'll be done that much faster.

But Burt's standing there beside her, drying as she washes, and Finn realizes he's not needed. He's about to turn and head back to the den when he hears her.

"She looks at him like he hung the damn moon," his mom half whispers, half laughs. She sounds amused or pleased or kind of surprised. "Like he's the greatest thing since sliced bread."

"Isn't that the way it should be?" Burt says. "Especially when you're that young."

"Sure. Absolutely. It's just… the girl he was seeing before Rachel? I don't think she ever looked at him like that. Not that I saw anyway."

Burt bobs his head.

"Well, then, I guess the kid's traded up."

His mother murmurs her agreement, smiling all big and bright, and as much as he tries to stop himself, Finn wonders if she looked at his dad the same way she thinks Rachel looks at him. He knows he's too young to be thinking about anything like that. He knows better than anyone how quickly things can change, how fast your life can veer off in another direction, but he knows that his mother is right. Being with Rachel is so different than being with Quinn. More and more he realizes that he and Quinn barely knew each other, that they fit together more because of what other people thought of them than what they thought of each other. Rachel actually likes him. She likes listening to his stupid stories and dumb jokes and she doesn't care when he can't figure out the exact right thing to say. She doesn't look at him and see a whole bunch of things that need to be fixed. She sees him for who he really is, and when she looks at him, he feels like he's something more in her eyes than he ever thought he could be.

Back in the den, Rachel and Kurt have started some musical with Madonna in the starring role. He'd suggested The Who's Tommy before he left because he knew they wanted to watch something with over the top show tunes and at least that was the freaking Who but he was outvoted.

"Evita," Rachel tells him as he squeezes himself onto the sofa beside her. "It's based on the life of Eva Peron."

He nods, but he's got no clue who Evita or Eva Peron are or if maybe they're the same person and he doesn't really care. He takes Rachel's hand, laying it against his thigh. He sees everything that's happening on screen but he can't really follow along and Madonna's an actress or she's a soap saleslady or maybe she's president of some really weird, made up country or something. Rachel is riveted, mouthing along with Madonna every time she talks or sings, and he watches her, thinking that if anyone hung the moon, if anyone is responsible for the stars, it's her.

He realizes at some point that Kurt is looking at him, and their eyes meet before he can catch himself. Finn smiles apologetically, though he's not sure what exactly he's sorry for – for making Kurt watch a movie with Rachel when he knows that she isn't exactly Kurt's favorite person in the world, for almost screwing things up for their parents with the crap he said a few months back, for not being who he thinks Kurt might want him to, for having someone to love when Kurt doesn't, for having someone who loves him for exactly who he is, no hiding or pretending or trying to be somebody else.

Kurt bobs his head, almost like he understands, and turns back to the movie.

Later, when he's getting ready to drive Rachel home, she insists on saying goodbye to his mom. He stands back, leaning against the wall as they hug. His mom even squeezes Rachel's hands as they pull apart, like she's just as afraid as he is that this amazing, wonderful, beautiful girl might somehow slip away from them.

"Thank you so much for making me the salad, Mrs. Hudson," Rachel says. "I know it can be difficult to plan a meal for a vegetarian dinner guest. Especially when you're not used to it. I really appreciate it. "

His mom shakes her head, smiling.

"Oh, sweetie, it was my pleasure." She glances over at him, a sly look on her face. "Maybe you can help me convince Finn that eating a vegetable every once in a while won't kill him."

Rachel looks over at him then, beaming at the mere thought. She's been preaching to him about the importance of a healthy diet for weeks now – his mom's approval will only make her that much more determined.

"I can't definitely work on that."

"Knock it off," he says good-naturedly. "The last thing I need is the two of you ganging up on me."

They exchange a kind of knowing look, and he thinks that they probably could convince him to do just about anything if they tried hard enough. For years, he's considered it his job to make sure his mom is happy and now there's Rachel too. He just loves the way she looks when she smiles.

"I had a lovely time tonight," she tells him when he parks the car in front of her house. "Did you like 'Evita?' Kurt said you'd hate it, but I thought that maybe you'd-"

"Can I be honest?"

She shifts in her seat so she's facing him, her eyes wide and eager.

"Please."

"I didn't really pay attention to any of it. Did Madonna marry the guy she wanted in the end?"

Rachel's mouth hangs open for a minute, like she doesn't understand a word he said. Then she makes a little high-pitched sound, which he thinks means she's offended or confused. He's not exactly sure.

"Finn! How could you not pay attention? Evita is one of my all-time favorite musicals. I dream of playing that role one day. And it's based on real life events so it has a significance that many other Broadway shows do not. How could you not…"

She shakes her head, like she's disappointed or hurt almost.

"I was distracted," he says.

"Distracted?" she snorts. "Right. Let me guess you were wondering how many touchdowns the Reds scored, right?"

He can't help laughing, even though her eyes seem to narrow in a mean kind of way.

"Actually, it was your fault," he tells her. "Because I was thinking about you."

She's still for a moment and then she tilts her head, her eyes going all soft and dreamy.

"Really?" she says. "What were you thinking exactly?"

He takes her hand, tugging her toward him so he can steal a kiss.

"Oh, nothing really," he teases, breathing against her lips. "Just that you're pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread."

She giggles and he can feel the vibrations pass from her body to his like some kind of electric charge.

"Since sliced bread? That's rather corny."

He nods in agreement.

"But true."

Her hands are in his hair then, and she's kissing him back like he's said the right thing, the perfect thing, and he realizes that he would hang the moon for her if he could.

For now, he just kisses her and somehow that seems to be enough.

- x -

The fifth week, she goes down on him for the first time.

He's pretty much totally unprepared for it when it happens, but it's freaking amazing, like his mind's been blown wide open and apart and he can barely remember his own name.

They haven't talked about it at all – that's why he thinks he's so caught off guard. Of course, he'd never brought it up with Quinn either. He'd hinted in a polite, non-confrontational way, and while he's pretty sure she knew exactly what he was getting at, she'd played dumb. Puck always told him that he shouldn't beat around the bush (Pun totally intended, Puck smirked.), that he just needed to be a man and ask for what he wanted. Clearly, Puck knew what he was talking about since he'd gotten into Quinn's pants when Finn could barely make it to second base, but he'd never really followed the advice.

Rachel's different, though.

He still remembers what she said at that Abstinence Club meeting. He remembers that every time that they've ever made out, she's seemed really eager and into it. He probably could talk to her about sex and stuff without feeling like he was some kind of pervert, without feeling like he was the only one who interested in it.

But there are other reasons why he can't talk to Rachel about any of it. They've got their own baggage.

His night with Santana still feels as cold and empty and shameful as it did then, a deep, dark secret he doesn't want to dwell on. He tries really hard not to think about Rachel and Jesse too. Because the idea alone makes him want to put his fits through a wall or rearrange that asshole's pretty boy face. And he knows that Jesse St. James is a smooth operator, that there were probably tons of girls before Rachel (tons since, too), so the guy had to know what he was doing. That is Rachel's experience, that is what she had to judge everything that comes after against. Finn knows how clumsy he is, how overeager and technique-less and just plain clueless he is when it comes to sex. Five minutes with Santana definitely didn't change that.

He tells himself that it'll be different with Rachel because he loves her and she loves him but then he feels like a freaking girl for even thinking it and that makes him feel like crap too, so it's best not to think about sex at all.

Definitely best not to talk.

Not even with Rachel.

It's easier to just kiss her, to hold her and feel her, and just let things happen naturally. The way they should.

And it's looks like he's right because it does happen naturally, without any discussion or warning.

They're at her house in the middle of the afternoon when her dads are at work. He's not even trying anything, not really, because they're just supposed to be listening to music. Another Broadway soundtrack of course, but this one is from _Chicago_ and he doesn't seem to mind it as much. He actually thinks some of it has kind of sexy sound and Rachel must agree because without so much as a word, she's climbing over him and then they're fooling around on the leather sofa in her den like their plane is going down or something and they might never get the chance again. He has his hand up her shirt, his fingers tentatively slipping beneath the lacy edge of her bra, but she doesn't protest, she doesn't make any effort to stop him. If anything, she kisses him harder, pushes her body against his like she just wants more.

He kind of panics for a minute because really, he's got no clue what to do, but in the time that he tries to figure it out, her hand finds its way to the fly of his shorts and she's popping open the button and tugging the zipper down before he even realizes what's happening. When her hand slips inside, his entire body tightens like his muscles are made of rubber bands and they've been stretched way too far. He tries to speak, to ask her if she's sure about this, but the only sound he make come out of his mouth is somewhere between a groan and a whimper and it's pretty embarrassing.

Her hand moves slowly, slower than he usually goes himself. It's like she's testing the waters, trying to figure out what works best. If he could speak, he'd tell her that it doesn't matter, that it's perfect because it's her hand and he's been dreaming about this forever.

And then, without warning, she's sliding down to the floor between his knees and pulling his shorts and boxers out of the way and he's really confused because he's pretty sure that barely half of his brain cells are working at the moment. She looks up at him, and it's almost like she's smiling but not exactly and her eyes are kind of hazy, like she's high or something. He realizes what she's about to do just before she does it, but that still doesn't really prepare him for the feel of her mouth on him. He curses out loud and his eyes slam shut and it's like he can't even process what he's feeling anymore.

Well, that's not exactly true.

It feels good. Un-fucking-believably good. Better than anything he's ever felt in his life.

He forces himself to open his eyes because, let's face it, this is the kind of moment you want to remember in full, graphic detail. Even seeing it with his own eyes, he's not sure he's going to believe any of this later. Because it's the middle of the freaking afternoon, in broad daylight so the sun's glinting off the top of Rachel's hair and making it look all shiny and kind of shimmery and fuck, he just can't believe this is happening. The world sort of falls away until all that really matters is the warm feel of her mouth and her hair against his thighs and the only part of him that exists anymore is right there inside…

Fuck.

At least he lasted longer than three minutes this time.

When the world finally comes back into focus, Rachel's wiping her mouth with a tissue and grinning like she's just been told that she'll get all the solos in glee club for the rest of her life. She leans her chin on his knee.

"You look like you had a heart attack," she says. "Or a stroke."

He shakes his head, like that might help his brain come back online.

"I kind of feel like I did," he says. He reaches out to touch her cheek and it's embarrassing because his fingers are still kind of shaking. "What was that, Rach?"

She shrugs, all casual and relaxed – like going down on him on her dads' leather couch in the middle of the afternoon is an everyday occurrence. (What exactly would he have to do to make that so, he wonders briefly. He can't really think of a price that's too high)

"I just felt like it," she says simply, as if that's all the explanation required.

She hands him the box of tissues then, so he can clean himself up. He's aware that she's watching him the whole time and maybe he's crazy but that makes him kind of horny too. He wonders what the proper etiquette is, if he's supposed to thank her or not. His mom is always telling him to be a gentleman but he's not sure what that means in a situation like this. She's still smiling, grinning like an idiot really, and he realizes then that all he wants to do is make her feel as good as she made him feel - which, really, seems like an impossible task but he's got to at least try.

He pulls her into his lap and she's so warm and smells so good. Somehow, she tastes salty and sweet at the same time and that drives him kind of crazy. She doesn't stop him when he slides his hand under the hem of her skirt and that's all the encouragement he needs really. The skin at her thighs is so hot, it's like she's got a fever. When he brushes his fingers against the front of her underwear, she moans in this really high-pitched, whiny way that's totally out of tune, though he doesn't think it's really the time to point that out.

He doesn't really know what he's doing, but she feels amazing and she's shaking in his arms like she's going to spontaneously combust or something so he figures that he can't be totally off base.

And he's willing to learn. Oh, man, is he willing to learn. He'll spend the rest of his life figuring out exactly what she likes and how fast and all of that if he just gets to keep doing this, again and again, day after day. She presses her face into the curve of his neck where he's all sweaty and flushed and she's breathing really hard and fast like she just ran a marathon. When her body goes all tense and she bites his shoulder hard, he's pretty sure he's grinning like an idiot.

Afterward, they take turns washing up in the bathroom. Her cheeks are still flushed when he comes out and she looks so hot that he's already gearing up for round two. She takes his hand, smiling almost shyly, and kisses his fingertips.

"You're wonderful," she whispers.

He smiles, kissing the back of her hand.

"So are you."

Later that night, when's he home in bed, he plays it all back in his head and it still doesn't seem real. It's too much like all the hot, sweaty dreams that wake him up with a hard-on. He stubbornly refuses to think about Jesse St. James, about whether Rachel ever did that for him, whether he taught her all sorts of techniques and special tricks that made it so incredible. Finn knows that she slept with Jesse - she told him herself – but he refuses to think about it. He doesn't want to start wondering about how he measures up to that asshole. He also refuses to think about what happened with Santana. It meant less than nothing and felt that way too. No matter who or what either of them has done before, it's not important because it's the past, ancient history like that Iran Contra thing Mr. Helmer was always talking about.

That's what he tells himself anyway.

Even if he still wishes he could go back and change it all.

- X –

Part 2 to follow tomorrow


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: First of all, thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read this story and especially those who've been kind enough to leave reviews. It's all very much appreciated. I won't lie – I was very nervous about posting this and you guys have been so kind. Thank you so much.

Here is the rest. Hope you enjoy it.

- X -

The sixth week, they have their first real fight since school ended.

He can't even remember what's it about or how he started. It may have been about whether they should go see the new action flick starring Angelina Jolie (his choice) or some free jazz concert in the park (hers). They've been pretty good at compromising lately, so he's not sure why that would be such a big deal, but something gets them yelling at one another, crossing their arms against their chests and glaring across the room at one another like they wish looks could kill.

They know each other too well, he realizes. That makes it really easy to hurt one another, to find the meanest words and unleash them like little bombs. It gets nasty really fast, with Rachel going on about how selfish and insensitive he is and him calling her the biggest spoiled brat he's ever met. Pretty soon, she's crying and he's got a headache and the only thing that seems to make any sense to him is storming out of her house.

At home, he's still pissed as hell and bangs around the kitchen so loudly that his mom comes to check on him.

"What's wrong, honey?"

"Nothing."

She leans back against the counter, crossing her arms against her chest, and he remembers the look on Rachel's face when left, how sad and hurt she was.

"Nothing, huh? So you didn't maybe have a fight with Rachel?"

He pounds a fist against the refrigerator door.

"God! Why does everything have to be about Rachel?"

His mom laughs, making him feel even more annoyed.

"I don't think *everything* is, Finn. Just everything for you."

He lowers his head because he hates how easily his mom can read his mind. It makes him feel like an idiot. Or some totally whipped pussy. Puck would have a field day if he knew just how far Finn has fallen.

"Couples fight, honey," his mom says, rubbing his arm. "All of them. What matters is caring enough to make things right."

His mom is probably right. She's been in enough crappy relationships to know how things go bad. Besides, he's barely even mad anymore. He just feels kind of guilty and he misses Rachel and he wants things back to normal. He'll have to go back to her place. He can stop and pick up some flowers on the way because he has to have some kind of peace offering, some small token to show that he's sorry he can be such a big time jerk.

He grabs his keys and opens the door and is about to head for the car when he sees Rachel heading up the steps to his house. She looks like she only just stopped crying and that makes him feel so much worse. She's got a box of candy in her hands and holds it out to him kind of hesitantly.

"Russel Stover's," she says. "Just caramels and nuts. Your favorite."

He feels like the world's biggest prick, holding the candy in his hands.

"Rach, I don't-"

"I realize that I may have over-reacted," she says. "I do that sometimes. A lot of the time, actually."

"Yeah, well, I was a pretty big jerk. I do that sometimes too."

She nods, looking kind of teary-eyed again.

"We're a pair, aren't we?" she whispers.

Her voice is so soft and sad that he has to touch her. He reaches out to stroke her cheek, and she kind of turns into his hand and closes her eyes like she's dreaming. He wishes that it was possible that they'd never fight again but he knows that impossible because they can both be kind of stubborn and stupid and passionate about the things they believe in so they're bound to butt heads again and again. But right now, he's just going to pretend that they'll never fight again and he'll never make her look so sad and she'll never make him feel so crappy again. Rachel looks at him again, her eyes sort of shining, and he glances down at the box of chocolates she's brought him.

It's pathetic – she's the girl and she's the one bringing him a present.

All he can do is pick a flower from one of his mom's rose bushes, which she'd normally kill him for but he hopes that she'll understand given the circumstances. He feels kind of like he's five years old again, plucking a dandelion from the grass beside the playground and giving it to Allie Sherman. Of course, Allie Sherman threw the flower on the concrete and stomped all of it before running off. He's pretty sure that as sad as Rachel might be right now, she's not about to do that.

She takes the rose and holds it between her fingers really carefully, like it's made of glass or something. Maybe she's afraid of the thorns, he thinks. But then she looks up at him and her eyes are all glassy again, but she doesn't look sad. She looks almost happy. And then she sighs, and that one soft little sound makes his chest kind of hurt. Their eyes meet and just like that, he knows what he has to do.

"I'm sorry," they both blurt out in unison.

For a minute, they're both quiet, like neither of them understands what's happened.

And then they start laughing, quiet at first but getting louder and louder until he's sure that they must look pretty insane. He kisses her while they're both still laughing and everything feels right again.

They don't wind up going to the movies. They don't go to listen to jazz either. Instead, they lie together on his cramped little twin bed and eat the candy she brought as they stare up at the stupid glow-in-the dark stars he put up on the ceiling when he was eight. Rachel tries to pick out real constellations in the swirling, random patterns he made and he knows then.

He's always going to care enough to want to make things right.

-x-

The seventh week, her dads take them to the ballet in Columbus.

Honestly, he's happy that her dads like him enough to ask him to come but he has no interest in ballet and he doesn't want to go. Rachel is so excited, though – it's all she can talk about for days – so he sucks it up, puts on a button down shirt and a tie, and tries to act like he's not bored out of his mind.

Sitting there, in the warm, dark theater, he's about to fall asleep when he catches a glimpse of Rachel beside him. She's got this look on her face like she's totally amazed, totally blown away, and it jolts him awake. She looks so happy, like she's in her element or something, and he can't help smiling. The music gets really loud and she looks up at him suddenly.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she whispers.

She seems almost out of breath and her cheeks are all flushed and she's got to be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

So he nods.

He can't hate the ballet when it makes her this happy.

She takes his hand and holds it for the rest of the show.

As soon as the curtain falls, though, it's like whatever spell she was under has broken. She isn't excited like he expects. She isn't babbling on and on about how amazing the dancers were or how beautiful the costumes were or how she can't wait for the day when she standing on a stage in front of an audience that big. Instead, she's really quiet and she won't meet his eyes and even though she's still holding his hand, it almost seems like she wishes she could just pull away. She barely talks at all on the two hour car ride home so he has to carry on a conversation with her dads about what it's like for him to have his mom dating someone so seriously for really the first time ever and where he thinks he might like to go to college and what songs were his favorite performances in glee club. Finn keeps an eye on Rachel the whole time, hoping she'll chime in, but she's turned toward the window, resting her head on her hand and watching mile after mile of black scenery pass by, and it's like she doesn't even hear them.

He finally gets her alone on the front porch of her house after her dads have gone inside.

"What's wrong?" he asks, trying not to sound too alarmed. "I thought you'd be babbling a million miles a minute the whole way home about how amazing Swan River was."

"Swan Lake," she corrects.

He shrugs indifferently.

"River, lake. Whatever. Come on, Rach…"

"It's nothing."

She crosses against her chest and leans against the porch railing, and he thinks that even someone who isn't fluent in Rachel Berry Body Language 101 would understand her mood.

"It's not nothing," he declares. "Obviously."

She looks up at him, and he totally panics because it seems like she's about to cry all of a sudden. He tries to go over every word he's said today to see if he could have accidentally said something really stupid and mean. After their fight last week, he's trying to be more sensitive but he knows that he's bound to screw up from time to time. He can't think of anything, though. And he definitely didn't say anything before the ballet ended which is when she started drifting away. He didn't say a word.

"It's stupid," she whispers. "Most of the time, I'm fine and then all of a sudden…" She shakes her head and he has no idea what she's talking about it and it makes him feel like a total failure as a boyfriend. "My dads explained to me pretty early on about the circumstances of my conception. I was always a precocious child so they knew I could handle it."

He nods, but he's still not really following. He doesn't understand what any of this has to do with a stupid ballet.

"So sometimes, when I was little, I'd be in my ballet class and I'd watch the other girls get picked up by their mothers and I'd watch them show off the steps we'd learned and I'd … It's not that my dads weren't wonderful. They've always been wonderful and they'd drive me to ballet and singing lessons and make sure my hair and makeup were perfect for performances and snap pictures like crazy like all the mothers … but sometimes I couldn't help thinking, someday. Someday she's going to come for me too and she'll take me to the ballet and we'll be like all the other mothers and daughters. We'd have that too." She wipes at her eyes almost angrily. "I remembered that tonight at the ballet. It just sort of hit me…"

He gets it finally – at least he's not a total idiot – and reaches out to rub her back.

"Rachel. I'm sorry…"

"I'm happy that Quinn and Puck's daughter is going to have a stable home. I really am. Every child deserves that. But I guess I just don't… she practically ran away screaming from me when I tried to reach out to her and now she's all happy playing mommy to someone else. I guess I just don't understand. I don't understand why I couldn't be enough."

She is crying for real now. He can see the tears on her cheeks when the moonlight hits her and it makes his stomach ache in the worst way. He takes her by the shoulders, so she has to look him in the eye and really see him.

"Hey, let me tell you something."

She blinks but she's all stiff and tense and it's almost like she's stopped breathing, like she's waiting on him before she does anything.

"Anyone who'd walk away from you is a freaking idiot," he whispers. "I know because I was stupid enough to do it a couple of times."

It's probably the most honest thing he's ever said to her but he doesn't really feel self-conscious about it. Her chin kind of crumples, like she's going to start on a whole new crying jag and he wants to kick his own ass for not being able to get this one little thing right, for not being able to make her feel better. But then she's wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him so hard that it's like she's hanging on for dear life and he's kind of surprised and confused but he hugs her back because that's the only thing that makes sense.

"I love you," she whispers into his shirt. It's the first time that she's said since the beginning of the summer and just like that, he can't help grinning like a moron. "So much."

"Me too," he whispers back.

She stands on her tiptoes and he bends down and they meet in the middle for a kiss. There's a crack of thunder all of a sudden and it starts to rain, pouring down around them in heavy sheets, but they stay on the porch, kissing until her dads flash the outside light a couple of times to remind them of her curfew.

He hates leaving her but she walks him to his car, not caring that her dress is getting soaked all the way through. Still, he waits until he sees that she's gotten inside safely before he pulls away.

Even then, he hates to go.

-x-

The eighth week, they run into Mr. Schue at the bowling alley.

He smiles as soon as he catches sight of them, holding hands as they wait for the girl behind the counter to get their bowling shoes. It's weird, Finn thinks. It feels like forever since they last saw Mr. Schue, when it used to feel like they spent pretty much every day with him. And really, it's only been a couple of months anyway, so it's not that long at all. Maybe it just means that it's time to get back to work.

"You two look good," Mr. Schue says. "Relaxed."

He's smiling as he says it and there's a kind of knowing edge to his voice, so Finn wonders if he realizes that just five minutes before they were in the car in parking lot, fooling around like nobody's business. Rachel's got that flushed kind of glow to her cheeks that seems like a dead giveaway, but she holds her head high like she's not ashamed of anything.

"As important as my singing career is to me," she says. "Even I recognize the benefits of taking a break every once and a while."

Mr. Schue smiles again, and nods.

"Well, it definitely seems like the summer agrees with you, Rachel." He looks over at Finn. "You too."

"It's fortuitous that we ran into you tonight," Rachel tells him. "Because I have been working on a preliminary list of songs that I think we should consider for the upcoming year. I've also taken the liberty of indicating which glee members I think would be best for solos with each song so we can begin making plans."

She's already shown Finn the list on her laptop and he's not sure what surprised him most – the fact that she'd been compiling this list all summer without so much as a word to him or the fact that she hadn't just chosen a bunch of songs that catered to her strengths, that only includes solos for her (or him. She's pretty protective of his place in the club too). She'd found a pretty wide range of songs, with a little something for everybody.

Of course, there were more solos under her name than anyone else's but that just makes sense – she is the best singer they had.

"I could e-mail it to you," she's telling Mr. Schue now. "So you can begin going over it and determining whether you agree with my assessments. It's probably best to do that before we actually start back in with school so we'll prepared."

Finn laughs, even though he thinks she's totally hot when she goes into drill sergeant mode.

"Rach, Mr. Schue's on summer vacation too, you know."

She frowns, looking kind of offended.

"I realize that, Finn. But preparation is important. You do realize that Vocal Adrenaline has been practicing all summer, don't you? We may have a year of experience under our belts, but that only means that expectations will be higher. We need to take a huge step forward if we want to avoid a repeat of what happened at Regionals."

Just like that, it's like they're all back there on that stage, watching fucking Vocal Adrenaline win and not even placing and feeling like the world's biggest failures. Rachel's right, though – instead of feeling bad about it, they should use it to motivate themselves. That's what he always tries to tell the guys on the football team – all their losses should make them want to win even more. It hasn't quite worked with them yet, but then they're mostly idiots anyway.

"You guys were sensational at Regionals, okay?" Mr. Schue says, and it's obvious from his tone of voice that means it, that he believes that. "I don't care what those judges thought. I was there. I heard. You guys should be very proud of yourselves, whether you won or not."

Finn looks down at Rachel, and she has a hard look on her face, like their failure has only made her more focused.

"I will," she says. "I will be proud of this next year. When we're back on that stage, taking first place."

He smiles, because there's no other response really. It can be annoying sometimes, it can be frustrating too, but he kind of loves her single-minded determination, her refusal to ever really give up.

"The power of positive thinking," Mr. Schue murmurs, and Finn is pretty sure that he's thinking the same thing. "I can get behind that."

"Good," Rachel says, smiling. "Then I'll email you the song list when I get home later. No time like the present to start turning that positive thinking into action."

Mr. Schue smiles and pats her arm.

"You're right, Rachel. Send me the list. I'll take a look at it tonight."

Later, as he's typing their names into the scorecard, he looks over at her, trying to select the perfect ball. She bites her lip as she tries to decide between an obnoxious pink one and a swirly purple one, and he has to ask.

"Hey, Rach?"

She looks up, her hand on the pink ball.

"Yes?"

"Do you really believe it? That we'll win at Regionals this year?"

He watches as she tilts her head like she's deep in thought. She'll be honest with him – he knows that.

"Yes," she says finally. "I mean, with you and I singing the majority of the solos, I don't see how we can lose again. We have experience now, so we know what we do well and what we need to improve and I have no doubt that we will. I won't settle for anything less."

He shakes his head, laughing quietly.

"Of course you won't," he teases. "We'll win through the sheer force of your will alone."

She kind of beams at him and he swears that he'll never get tired of being on the receiving end of that smile.

"But a strong will ain't gonna help you tonight," he tells her, standing to find a ball of his own. "Because I'm going to kick your butt."

She drops her hand to her hips, looking ridiculously hot in her ugly bowling shoes and short skirt.

"Is that right? Well, why don't we make it interesting then?" she says. "Loser buys pizza?"

"You're on."

He doesn't go easy on her, because that wouldn't be fair, and she pouts the whole time. The whole time, he's thinking about what things might be like in a year, what it might feel like to be winners and not losers. Maybe he'll love her even more than he does now (though that seems kind of impossible). Maybe he'll be closer to the guy she deserves (though he doubts he'll ever really be good enough for that). Maybe he'll be even happier than he is right now (though it seems pretty greedy to even think about that).

He watches another of Rachel's balls roll into the gutter.

Maybe she'll even be better at bowling.

-x-

The ninth week, Burt gets four tickets to the Reds' game and since Kurt has promised Mercedes that he'd go shopping with her at the outlets, Burt offers the extra ticket to Rachel. Finn laughs as soon as the words leave Burt's mouth.

"You seriously think she'd sit through nine innings of baseball? She doesn't even know the difference between a home run and a touchdown."

Rachel glares at him, hands on her hips, like she could actually pull off being menacing. Even Burt looks like he might laugh.

"Finn," his mother scolds. "Be nice."

"I'm just sayin', Mom. She's not exactly the biggest sports-"

"I would love to go, Mr. Hummel," Rachel declares. "Thank you very much for the invitation."

"You really think you're going to be able to follow along?" he asks later when she's getting ready to head home. "I mean, there are eight position players on each team and the pitcher and then most times, two or three relievers come in and sometimes there's a double switch when the manager takes out a-"

"Finn," she says, sounding totally annoyed. "It's not rocket science, you know."

When they pick her up the next afternoon, she's wearing a tight, little pink and white Reds t-shirt that she had to buy just for the game because he thinks he'd know if she had it before. She looks so proud of herself as she slide into the backseat beside him, and he smiles because she looks cute and her denim skirt is really short.

"If you can make it through Swan Lake," she says. "I can make it through a stupid baseball game."

He's still grinning because really, he can't help it. Her competiveness is one of her most annoying qualities, but it's also kind her sexiest too. Even as she's challenging him with her smug little smile, their hands reach for one another across the leather of the back seat, so their fingers tangle together.

And he has to hand it to her – she is a good sport.

She listens carefully as he explains the rules, biting her lip in a way that probably means she's concentrating really hard but just seems really hot and totally distracting to him. She hoots and hollers when Joey Votto hits a home run in the bottom of the fourth so he's pretty sure she actually understood it all too. She and his mom try to singlehandedly start the wave afterward, and it sort of catches on – at least in the section where they're sitting.

She never complains about being bored. She never even looks bored.

They go to the concession stand in the top of the sixth when it seems like the Brewers might tie it up and he's too frustrated to watch. He wants cotton candy anyway, and for once, she doesn't lecture him about sugar and nutritional values and all that stuff. She actually lets him feed her a little bit of it and her lips are all sparkly and blue and he has to kiss her, right there in the front of men's bathroom while Arroyo is striking out three Brewers in a row.

"I think I like baseball," she whispers to him, like it's a secret, something only for them to know.

On the way home, she falls asleep on his shoulder just after they hit the highway. He watches her like some loser because she's just too pretty to not look at. His mother peers back from the front seat, and smiles.

"I think she had a good time," she says softly.

Finn nods.

"Yeah."

His mother turns around, and she and Burt start talking quietly about something. They're holding hands over the console, and even though he can't really hear them, they seem really happy. He looks at Rachel, dreaming against his shoulder, and everything seems good and right for a moment.

More and more, he's believing that it can stay this way.

-x-

The tenth week, she gets quiet again.

It might not be noticeable with most people, but in Rachel Berry, the girl who would seriously talk until her face turned bright, bright blue, it is really freaky. Football practice started on Monday, so he's had less time with her and he wonders if he's been a jerk without realizing it. It's totally possible, he knows.

They're lying together on a blanket in her backyard and the sun's just starting to set so the sky's all orange and purple and it should be really romantic moment. Except Rachel looks like she might throw up at any minute and even he realizes that's not a good sign.

He's really nervous because he has no idea what to do and when he's clueless like this, he's more likely to do or say something stupid. He fiddles with the zipper on his hoodie, just to have something to do, and tries to figure what's wrong and what he can do to fix it and why this relationship stuff has to be so hard sometimes.

He looks at her, lying beside him with a tight little frown, and all of a sudden he's talking without even thinking about it.

"Hey," he says quietly. "Did I ever tell you what my mom used to sing to me when I was a kid?"

Rachel turns her head slightly, looking kind of confused.

"No." She props herself up on an elbow, almost smiling now. "What did she sing?"

"Puff the Magic Dragon."

She laughs, her head tilting back so her neck is all golden in what's left of the sunlight.

"Really?"

He's smiling along with her now because really, how can he not?

"Yup. I guess my grandma, my dad's mom, she used to sing it to him when he was a kid and got sick or couldn't sleep or something. He told my mom about it, so when I was little, I guess she thought it would help me too."

Rachel's not laughing anymore. Her face has this soft, dreamy kind of look that he's recognized from the beginning as love – or at least something close to it.

"Did it?" she asks.

"I guess," he says, trying to remember. "But then, you know, I got older and realized that Jackie Paper was really kind of a jerk."

Rachel laughs again, laying a hand on his arm as she tosses her head back and forth.

"What?" he asks, laughing along with her. "He totally was. If I had a cool magic dragon for a friend, I wouldn't ditch him like that. It's cold."

She smiles again, but in a kind of a sad way. Bittersweet, he thinks is the right word.

"He grew up, Finn. You can't hold that against him."

She lowers her head, so her hair falls around her face in a dark curtain. He reaches out to tuck some of it behind her ear, so he can see her eyes. Or one of them anyway.

"Is something wrong?" he finally works up the nerve to ask.

He's totally terrified because it could be something that he can't fix or take back or make right. But he's got to ask. He's got to know.

She sighs, and somehow, like her singing, that tiny, little sound hits him right in the middle of his chest.

"It's just…" She shakes her head, and the sad smile is back. "School starts next week…"

He smiles big and wide, so relieved that it's not something he's done, that it's just something small and normal like being upset that summer vacation is over. He can handle that.

"Yeah, I'm bummed too," he says. "But look at it this way – it just means that we're that much closer to getting back to work on glee club and everything. School sucks, but at least we've got that to look forward to…"

She shakes her head, twisting one of the buttons on her tank top between her fingers.

"It's not going back to school that bothers me so much," she says. "It's going back to school where you're this big football star and I'm so far at the bottom of the social food chain that I'm practically subterranean that has me…"

She trails off, like she can't bring herself to finish. He cocks his head, squinting at her like that might help him understand. Because he totally doesn't. Not even a little bit.

"I don't get it," he tells her honestly.

She looks up at him, with those big dark eyes that can make his heart stop when she looks at him just right – like she is now.

"In the past," she says quietly. "You have been somewhat concerned with what other people think of you. Being with me, you know, that's not really going to be popular with all your jock friends. If previous history is any indication."

When he finally gets what she's saying, it hits him like a sucker punch right in the middle of his stomach. He sits up, hoping that will make the sick feeling go away. It makes sense, though – that she'd worry about something like this. He's been a total coward when it's come to this kind of stuff before, always letting other people decide who he should be and what he should do. And all summer, they've been in their own little world, where no one else – definitely not those jerks from the football team he still calls friends for some reason – exists. It's been just the two of them, so there hasn't been anyone to answer to or explain things to.

It's been simple. Easy.

She's worried about when things get complicated.

He is ashamed of himself in a way that he's been only been a handful of times before. Because he's done so much to make her worry about something like this and so little to make her feel better.

"Rach," he whispers, tugging on her arm so she sits up beside him. She won't meet his eyes, though, and he hates himself a little bit more. "I love you. You're like the only person whose opinion really matters to me anymore."

She finally looks at him, her eyes so wide and wet-looking, and he can tell how badly she wants to believe him, how afraid she still is. He'll prove it to her everyday if he has to, if that's what it takes, but he wants to make it better for her right now, the way it always happens in sappy movies and TV shows. The corner of her mouth starts to lift up then, like she's starting to smile even if she's not totally sure that she should. And the she's climbing into his lap and she smells like vanilla and something kind of darker and more mysterious (which he thinks totally fits her because she may look innocent and kind of wholesome on the surface but there's something really dangerous and tempting at the heart of her that's impossible to resist) She wraps her arms around him and buries her face in the curve of his neck and she feels so good that he tells himself that this is all he needs to remember when things get complicated, that this is what he'll be fighting for.

They hardly speak the rest of the night.

They lie together and watch the stars come out one by one, like they're the only two people left on earth.

-x-

The first day, he drives her to school.

He holds her hand as they head through McKinley's front doors. She looks up at him, smiling in that nervous, unsure way she has. She looks amazing in her blue sundress and he's already got all these dirty ideas about undoing the pearly buttons on her sweater with his teeth. But right now he's happy just to hold her hand as they walk down the hallway because she isn't just the most beautiful girl in this school, she's the smartest, the most talented, the most passionate, the most ambitious, the most everything.

He dares anyone else to say otherwise.

-x-

That's all folks. ;)


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